The Home

TWENTY-SEVEN

Freeman thought he'd slipped to his cot unnoticed. But seconds after his head hit the pillow, a low whistle came from his left. Isaac's silhouette was all Freeman could see of his friend. No, not a friend.

Freeman would have no friends here. Not Isaac, not Dipes, not Starlene, not anybody. Not even Vicky, no matter how much she made his heart float. He was permanently retired from the job of Defender of the Weak, Protector of the Innocent. Isaac was just another stooge, another loser kid, competition for food and oxygen here in God's favorite little game, Survival of the Fittest.

"Psst." Isaac was sitting up now. He wore striped pajamas that looked like those worn by concentration camp inmates.

Freeman pulled the blanket over his head, the institutional rayon scratching his cheek. He smelled his own feet. Tomorrow he'd have to shower, get naked in front of Deke and his Goon Squad. No, wait. Freeman yanked the blanket away and peered down the row of cots. Deke was still gone. He had never returned from the basement.

Isaac hissed again.

Freeman lay on his back and stared up. The faint blue safety light by the door made the ceiling look like a starless night with a moon somewhere over the horizon. Or maybe it was the surface of the ocean and they were drowned. It really didn't matter if they were all dead yet or not. Either way there was no escape.

Isaac was by his ear now, pesky as a mosquito. He whispered, "What happened?"

"What do you mean, what happened?"

"You got rid of Deke somehow, didn't you?"

"I don't know."

"He wasn't at dinner, he missed Group, and even Army Jacket's looking a little lost. I'll bet you and Vicky-"

"Never put her and me in the same sentence."

"Or maybe it was Starlene. Or Kracowski? Did the mad doctor shock the monkey into a pile of ashes?"

"Are you on Ritalin or something?" Freeman asked.

"No, why?"

"You're talking way too fast."

"Bondurant made some of us go into his office. I've been there before. Never got a paddling, though. I hear that's one of his deals."

"What did he do to you?"

"Just asked if we'd been in the basement."

Freeman pulled the blankets tighter and tried not to think about the things under the bed and floor. "They got us trapped."

"What are you talking about?"

"Wires. On all the fences. Can't climb over without getting a shock that makes Kracowski's treatments seem like a tickle."

"Why?"

"Something to do with the Krackpot's equipment, I think. And there's a mysterious agency called the Trust that dabbles in this sort of weirdness. We're the guinea pigs. But I don't know what the experiment is."

"No way. That would never happen in the land of the free. And I thought I was paranoid."

"Isaac. You're a Jew. What the hell do you know about freedom?"

Isaac knocked on his own skull. "I'm free up here. If you have that, then you win."

Did Freeman have that sort of freedom? All he had was a screwed-up dad and screwed-up memories and rapid-cycle manic depression and a gift for triptrapping and, worst of all, he was falling into some sort of stupid attraction for a girl.

Attraction? Am I falling in love, or are my neurotransmitters fucked?

Now he was positive he was on the down cycle.

"Bondurant was drunk, as usual," Isaac said. "He asked me if I'd seen the Miracle Woman."

"Miracle Woman?"

"His eyes got all funny when he said her name. He looked at the walls like he expected to see cockroaches."

"Isaac, do you believe in God?"

Isaac said nothing. Somebody coughed in the far end of the dorm. The stench of dirty laundry and bad breath hung thick in the room. The kid to Freeman's right was snoring.

A voice came from the foot of Freeman's cot. "He don't believe in anything."

It was Dipes. Dipes, who never uttered a word.

"Yes, I do," Isaac said.

"Hush, because here comes the counselor," Dipes said.

Isaac scrambled back onto his cot, Dipes ducked, and Freeman closed his eyes. Ten seconds later, the door to the Blue Room opened. A flashlight beam bounced around the room, froze on Freeman's head for a moment, then the door slammed.

"How did you know he was coming?" Freeman said to Dipes.

The thin boy shrugged in the dim light. "Just knew. I've been knowing things lately. Knowing what's going to happen before it happens. Like I saw Deke disappear in the basement, then one of those creepy guards took him to a secret room. And I ain't seen Deke since. Can't say I miss him none, though."

"Freaky," said Isaac.

"Wait a second," Freeman said. "How many of Kracowski's treatments have you had?"

"Five," Dipes answered. "He said I was one of his favorites. Said I had so many problems I'd make a good case study."

"Aren't you better yet?"

Dipes said, "Look, someday when you got a few hours I could tell you the whole deal. But I don't think we have a whole lot of hours left."

"How come?" Isaac said.

"Because it's going to open up."

"What's going to open up?" Freeman was impatient, and had to remind himself that he was talking to a nine year old who still wore diapers. And who now claimed to have powers of precognition, the ability to see the future.

"The door," Dipes said. "The door to the deadscape."

Isaac said, "What's the deadscape, anyways? People keep talking about it, but what does it look like?"

Freeman had seen the deadscape as plain as day. To him, that world was as real as this one. Not everybody could triptrap, though. At least, not yet. But, if Kracowski's experiments were giving people psychic powers, then who knew where it would end? What would happen if everybody in the world could read each other's minds? How would Freemen feel when his power was no longer so special?

He asked Isaac, "Haven't you had a treatment yet?"

"No. Maybe I'm not screwed up enough to need curing."

"Give mem enough time and they'll find something," Freeman said.

"Well, they're careful with me because my grandparents want me out of here, but no way am I going to get conditioned by some creepy old Jews. They believe Christians are out to wipe them off the face of the planet."

"They probably are," Freeman said.

"Plus they'd make me get good grades."

"Better the devil you know, huh?"

Dipes tapped on the rail of Freeman's bed.

A couple of guys were talking across the aisle. One of them snickered.

"Tell us what happens," Freeman said to Dipes. "What you see."

"I don't know what the deadscape is, all I know is there's a white door in the floor. And the door swings open, and it's real bright, and all these people pour out and their eyes are crazy and they want to get us-"

"Calm down," Freeman said.

"They're people, but they don't have no bodies. They scream, but their lips don't move. And we start dying. And I'm scared."

Freeman fought off an urge to hug Dipes and comfort the little guy. The only way to survive this thing was to worry only about himself, numero uno; the budget Clint Eastwood a.k.a. the Kid, starring as The Man With No Name in his most insensitive role ever. Because the future was looking pretty bleak, even from the spiderhole view of a manic depressive.

Whatever he'd seen in the deadscape was more than just a triptrap illusion, and couldn't be explained away by screwed-up brain chemistry and misaligned neurons. Whatever walked down there was real. He believed without a doubt Dipes could see the future. At Wendover, everything was now believable, even the impossible.

Especially the impossible.

Isaac pulled his sheet over his head and made "whoooh" noises in imitation of a ghost. He lifted the sheet and stared at Freeman and Dipes, his face made eerie by the blue lighting. "Okay, let me get this straight. You're trying to tell me a bunch of restless spirits are living in the basement-I mean, are dying in the basement. And they're going to crawl out of the floor and do bad stuff to us. Okay, I'll buy that, since we all know that ghosts do bad stuff because they're jealous of us breathers and-"

"Isaac, you talk way too much." Freeman wished they would go to sleep so he could be alone with his thoughts of Vicky. He'd had enough doom and gloom for one day.

To Dipes, he said, "When does this door of yours open?"

"I can see the future, but I ain't learned to tell time yet."

"Guys," said Isaac. "Ghosts aren't real. And nobody knows the future but God."

"What are you fuckwits talking about?" It was Army Jacket, who had crept out from the shadows.

Freeman felt brave in his despair, so he said, "Where's your buddy?"

"What buddy?"

"Deke."

Army Jacket's eyes were black as beetles. "He ran away. He could blow this joint any time he wanted to."

"Sure. And he didn't invite you to run away with him. A goon like him needs a brainless sidekick. It's hard to picture Deke out there in the real world, getting by on his wits."

"Don't be a smartass."

"Somebody around here better be smart. Because we're in trouble."

"What the hell is this 'ghost' stuff?"

"Ghosts are what got Deke. Down in me basement."

"Bullshit. That's baby crap."

Dipes stuttered in the presence of his tormentor, but managed to say, "Wuh-we had those treatments. Now we can see through the walls."

Army Jacket snickered. "I had me treatment, too, and I'm not crazy yet. Unless they're giving you some pills or something. If they are, I want some."

"Ghosts aren't real," Isaac said.

"Oh, yeah?" Freeman said, pointing to the wall on the far side of the dorm. "Try telling her that."

Against the painted cinder blocks, flickering like the image cast by an old film projector, the woman without eyes smiled her dead smile.